


You've Got The Reapers and Hawks

by orphan_account



Category: Breaking Benjamin (Band)
Genre: But it's not graphic or anything, M/M, Obviously character death, Reaper!AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-06-02 01:59:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6545875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death (personification): </p><p>"Beliefs hold that the Spectre of Death is only a psychopomp, serving to sever the last ties between the soul and the body, and to guide the deceased to the afterlife, without having any control over when or how the victim dies."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ch. 1

Shaun woke up, confused and disoriented, in a hospital room. He just laid there and looked around for a couple of minutes, trying to clear his head and get his bearings.

He wasn’t quite sure  _ why _ he was in this hospital bed when he wasn’t in any pain or anything.

Nonetheless, he was careful as he sat up, taking it slow. While he wasn’t in any pain, he  _ did _ feel oddly lightheaded and out of it.

There was a muffled, monotonous tone coming from somewhere in the room and it wasn’t helping his weird dizzy feeling at all.

Just when he was about to get up, the door opened and Shaun stilled, expecting a doctor of some sort.

But if this was a doctor, then he was an awfully casual doctor.

He was tall, taller than Shaun, and dressed all in black from his shoes, to his jeans, to his button down shirt.

“Hello…” Shaun said cautiously, not sure who this man was or why he was in Shaun’s room.

Dark eyes landed on Shaun after he’d spoken and the dark-clad man smiled reassuringly.

“Don’t be frightened. I’m not here to harm you.”

“You’re not a doctor are you.” It was more of a statement than a question and the stranger shook his head.

“No, I can’t say that I am.”

“Than who are you? Why are you in my room?” Shaun curled up on the bed, drawing his knees to his chest protectively. 

“Easy there...I said I wouldn’t harm you. You can trust me Shaun.”

“How do you know my name? Seriously, who are you?”

The man sighed heavily, looking sympathetic, almost sad.

“There’s never an easy way to do this…”

“Do what?”

“To tell you that you’re dead…”

There was a long stretch of silence while Shaun tried to absorb this sentence.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re dead Shaun. I’m so sorry. That car crash killed you.”

Now that he mentioned it, Shaun could remember the sickening sound of another car hitting his, metal crunching on metal, a blinding pain and then darkness. He  _ had _ been wondering why he was in the hospital when he didn’t feel like he was in any pain.

But maybe it was just the drugs. Maybe they had him on some hardcore painkillers and that’s why-

“Look down on the bed behind you,” The man said softly, as though he had read Shaun’s mind, his dark eyes sorrowful. Shaun turned to do so and startled violently. 

He was laying on the bed…

But he was also sitting up…

Shaun looked from...himself up to the tall, dark haired man standing by his bedside.

“What?”

“That’s your body. You’re a spirit now.” The man reached out to lift Shaun’s hand from the bed, bringing it up before Shaun’s eyes.

“Oh!” Shaun exclaimed, startled again. His hand was translucent and he could see the room right through it. Except for where the dark haired man was touching him, then there were small patches of solid looking skin.

“I’m a ghost…”

“Yes, basically. You’re a spirit, ghost, whatever you would like to call it.”

“And who are you? You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

“My name is Benjamin.”

“Benjamin…” Shaun murmured slowly, as if feeling the name roll off his tongue. The taller man stood up, still holding Shaun’s hand in his own.

“Now I need you to come with me.”

“What, why?” Shaun asked, suddenly feeling panicked.

“There’s nothing for you here now, Shaun. You’re dead and you need to move on from this life.”

“But-”

“I’m a reaper. I’m meant to help you cross over so that you can be judged.” Shaun looked like he was starting to get a little overwhelmed by all of this.

“A reaper? Cross over? Judged?”

“I’ll tell you more about it more in depth, but we need to get going. We have quite a ways ahead of us.”

“Do I have to?” Shaun whispered faintly.

“I’m afraid so. If you don’t cross over, you’ll become a shade, and that’s dangerous. I’m telling the truth and I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

“I guess…”

“Do you trust me?” Benjamin asked, catching Shaun’s eye.

And Shaun really couldn’t get used to drowning in those dark eyes. They were just so soulful that he couldn’t say no.

“Yes, I trust you.” Benjamin smiled broadly and tugged on Shaun’s hand.

“Then let’s get going.”

“Okay,” Shaun relented and let himself be pulled up, not sparing a glance back at his body on the bed. Benjamin’s hand was warm and reassuring, and Shaun hadn’t realized just how cold he’d been. 

He followed the reaper out of the hospital room and into the hallway.

When Benjamin turned to go down the hall, Shaun had to hold back a gasp.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello, I'm back 5 months later with a second chapter to this! I'm trying to get a bunch of writing done, because I'm gonna be super extra busy this semester, since it's my last semester of my undergrad. So here, have some more supernatural foistley.

There were wings folded on the reaper’s back, mottled black and white.

“What’s wrong?” Benjamin asked, having obviously heard the gasp, and turning to look at Shaun over his shoulder.

“N-Nothing! I’m just cold…”

“That’s completely normal. You’re just not used to being so exposed.”

“Exposed?” Shaun huddled closer to the reaper. “Exposed to what?”

“Usually your spirit is protected by your mortal body. Now that you don’t have that protection, you’re more exposed to supernatural elements that you probably couldn’t sense while alive. You’re also exposed because your spirit glows and while that can be visible while you’re alive, it’s much more noticeable when you don’t have a mortal form.”

“More visible to what?” Shaun asked worriedly.

“Anything that knows how to look for that glow. Mostly reapers and demons.”

“Demons?” Shaun squeaked, looking around in a more panicked fashion now.

“Don’t worry, there aren’t any around right now,” Benjamin said reassuringly. “Even if there were, I’d protect you. That’s my job, to guide you to be judged and to protect you along the way.”

Even so, Shaun stayed close to the tall, dark haired man as they made their way down the hallway.

Shaun noticed that people tended to steer clear of the reaper, as if repelled by him.

“So I’m assuming that all of these people can’t see us right now,” he commented and Benjamin shook his head.

“No, reapers and spirits are usually invisible to humans. There are rare instances where a human can see us, but that doesn’t happen very often.”

“Why are people avoiding you then?” Shaun asked curiously. “Wouldn’t they just walk through you?”

“Reapers have a kind of natural force field of sorts around them. We kind of represent death to living bodies, so they tend to be repelled by this force field.”

“Are spirits like me drawn to you then? Or to reapers in general?”

“Not really. Maybe a little. They more just tend to feel safer and less exposed around us because we protect them. Why?”

“Just asking. I just thought if living people were repelled by you, then souls would feel drawn to you.”

“I don’t believe there’s any kind of natural draw.”

“Okay.”

Then why did Shaun feel so drawn to Benjamin, so comforted by the reaper’s presence?

He didn’t really think that he wanted to ask, at least not right now.

“So where are we going?” Shaun asked as they rounded a corner down a more quiet, empty hallway. “I know I have to be judged or whatever, but where are we even going?”

“It’s a purgatory of sorts,” Benjamin explained. “If you pass being judged, you go to whichever paradise you believe in.”

“And if I don’t pass?”

“Then you stay in purgatory, unless you choose to try and be redeemed.”

“Oh, so they give you a chance. That’s nice.”

“Yes...nice…”

Shaun caught a flutter of movement out of the corner of his eye, and saw those mottled, black and white wings on Benjamin’s back twitch slightly. Shaun watched them settle neatly back against the taller man’s back, partially hidden by his jacket.

“Hey Ben…?”

“Ben?” The reaper looked over at him in surprise.

“Ah, sorry! I didn’t mean-!” The nickname had just kind of slipped out, unbidden.

“It’s okay. It’s just that no one has called me that in a really long time.”

“Oh…” Probably a girlfriend of sorts.

Did reapers have relationships?

“I can call you Benjamin, if you would rather…”

“Ben is fine.” The reaper smiled at him and Shaun felt compelled to smile back. “Honestly, I don’t mind. What did you want to ask me by the way?”

“Ask you?”

“Before, you sounded like you started to ask me a question.”

“Oh...I don’t remember,” Shaun lied. For some reason, he didn’t really think that he should mention Ben’s wings either. It just didn’t feel right to him. 

“If you remember, feel free to ask.”

They kept walking, with Shaun occasionally sneaking covert glances at Ben’s wings, until they reached the end of a hallway. Shaun looked around curiously, but the only thing in this hallway seemed to be a closet of some sort. 

“Where are we?”

“Well, technically this is an old janitor’s closet that is no longer in use.”

“So why are we here?”

“Because it also happens to be the door that leads to the pathway that we need to take to get to the place where you will be judged. It’s called the Eternity Path.”

“The Eternity Path?”

“Because if you stray too far, you’ll be stuck wandering forever as a shade,” Ben said warningly. “So be sure to stay close to me.”

“Oh…” Shaun managed. “Well that’s really reassuring.”

Ben smiled, obviously hearing the sarcasm in Shaun’s voice. 

“Don’t worry. If you’re careful about it, it’s very easy to traverse. Just stay near me and stay on the path and you’ll be just fine.” The reaper reached out and traced a pattern onto the door with his finger. The symbol glowed purple briefly, then vanished and the door swung open.

Only it wasn’t the physical door that opened, but a kind of overlay door that they could see, ghostly and translucent, over the janitor’s closet. Ben turned to Shaun, reaching a hand out.

“Probably best that you hang onto me in some fashion. Might make you feel better.” Shaun gladly went to take the Reaper’s hand, curling his fingers around Ben’s securely. “Ready?”

“No, but let’s get this over with.”


End file.
